Lyme is a ‘do-it-yourself’ disease

How is it that chronic Lyme disease is an illness that hundreds of thousands if not millions of sufferers are forced to navigate primarily on their own, save for a handful of brave and noble doctors? How is it that chronic Lyme is a ‘do-it-yourself disease’ (aptly coined by senior producer Kris Newby of award-winning ‘Under Our Skin’ fame) where sufferers are forced to be their own diagnostician, medical researcher, medical investigator, microbiologist, neurologist, immunologist, and the like?

Image/Lori Dennis

With most conditions in modern medicine, we’ve come to expect that doctors will open their doors, their minds and their hearts, and will naturally be prepared to listen, seek, research, learn, confer, support, and prescribe. With chronic Lyme disease, world-over, sufferers are not afforded such treatment. Rather, they are told they are crazy, that it’s all in their heads, that no more can be done after a round or two of antibiotics. They are mocked, ridiculed, negated, scoffed at, met with disbelief and apathy … and often shown the door.

In a Facebook image I posted several weeks ago, it said: “Lyme gets ‘treated’ more humanely on Facebook than in most doctors’ offices.” In just a day or two, this post had a reach of more than 60,000 people. Why? Because it hit a nerve. It spoke to the stark reality affecting so many.

That’s right. You can’t understand, because even those of us who live in the Lyme world — researching, consulting, analyzing, and studying daily — barely understand. All that we do know, with utmost certainty, is that we are living in a parallel universe where up is down and down is up. Where the majority of doctors don’t play much of a role in treating the suffering or navigating the potential recovery of this life-altering disease. Where Lyme sufferers are let down every day, left on their own to figure it out, and are completely abandoned by the very professionals who have taken an oath to ‘do no harm’. (Last I checked, medical negation, invalidation, and abandonment of patients, all of whom are experiencing their own living hell, would be seen as doing great harm.)

How can a disease that is clearly infecting and affecting so many — requiring and creating more than five decades of activism, debate, controversy, heartbreak, confusion, outrage and untold anguish — be so widely ignored?

If this question were easy to answer, and I really wish it were, there would be no need for a book like mine or the daily efforts of many valiant heroes in the ongoing Lyme Wars — heroes who have been fighting this battle for years, with little change or resolution to speak of.

Ever since the first outbreak of chronic Lyme disease in Lyme, Connecticut in 1965, when Polly Murray first alerted the medical authorities to her strange and unexplained symptoms plaguing her and her family, when doctor after doctor could not explain what was happening to them or why, Murray was forced to try to figure it out on her own, without the support of the medical system.

The lack of medical interest, attention, and outright negation of Murray’s suffering led to her own personal examination and exploration of the disease that she and her family were experiencing. Murray was a pioneer in the understanding and recognition of what we now call chronic Lyme disease. Her efforts eventually led to Dr. Willy Burgdorfer’s 1982 discovery of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

Now five decades later, we are still fighting the same fight — the very same battle that compelled Murray to lead the charge way back when. Now, all these years later, we are still waging the very same war against the medical powers-that-be who continue to insist that chronic Lyme disease is ‘difficult to catch, easy to diagnose and easy to treat.’

When will this war end? When will doctors sit up, take notice, realize that things do not add up, and act courageously and appropriately outside of the outdated, ineffective protocols that were never designed to treat this neurological, systemic, post-sepsis AIDS-like illness we know as chronic Lyme in the first place? What will it take to effect a complete shift in attitudes, and offer widespread medical understanding and support to the millions suffering? What will it take to veer from a ‘do-it-yourself’ disease to one in which the medical community will act responsibly as their medical license so mandates.

3 Comments

I believe the reason doctors don’t do more is because there are so many symptoms each requiring their own treatment. Also, different treatments or medicines cause side effects which create new problems requiring more and different medicines /treatments.
If you look at cancers, there are hundreds of cancer types and a variety of chemos and radiations. The doctor saying goes like this. If this don’t work, we will try something else. (my experience). What you notice is they are usually trying to get rid of a tumor which can be measured and visual to some type of x-ray.
Lyme is not visual and can not be measured.
What we do know is that lyme is a type of auto immune disease and we also know that many of the symptoms are an immune response. However, with so many symptoms at once, the immune system is overwhelmed. It is like sending your military to fight 30 different wars on 30 different fronts. Some battles get won enough to send aid to another front but that battle will re-emerge as those fighters get well enough to fight again or get new recruits.
So what is the answer?
We all know what the many antibiotics do to your gut and immune system. The antibiotics do not discriminate between the good and bad bacteria in the gut. This bacteria is important to your health as it breaks down food into the proper nutrients so your body can absorb what is needed by your cells. These healthy cells will have the protective outer shell and the proper inner properties to fight off what is attacking them.
This is where I believe that Plexus products help. We have seen several lymies get relief using these products. Message me for testamonials.
The Plexus slim(pink drink) is designed to regulate blood sugars. Blood sugars are problematic as many symptoms feed off those sugars. It also promotes healthy cholesterol levels.
The largest, most interesting part of health and the immune system is the gut.Listening to your body and finding the nutrients that it is lacking is tough to do.
Most lymies are on large amounts of antibiotics and as we stated earlier, antibiotics do not discriminate. A compromised gut is is evident through different illnesses, allergies, and even autoimmune diseases. Probiotics are key to rebuilding the gut.
This is where Plexus probio 5 comes in.
This probiotic has 4 strains of good bacteria and 1 yeast. The yeast is the s. Boulardii which is essential for gut health.
The probio 5 also has serrapeptase which which is an alternative to steroid pain relievers. This enzyme, when isolated and formed into capsule, is shown to have anti inflammatory effects and pain blocking abilities.
When unwanted toxins crash your immune system, the body shuts down with inflammation.
Now you can see how the immune system is being attacked and overwhelmed on all fronts. This is why doctors have such a hard time figuring out where to begin with treatment and/or diagnosis.
You can find out more about the Plexus products from me or google them. Google Plexus and lyme.
You are already trying many products that your doctor prescribed and many of those scripts are actually hurting your body.
Did you know that after being on certain antibiotics for a lengthy period can take over a year to rebuild your gut health once you stop using that antibiotic.
Plexus products are of the highest quality. Why not try it for 60 days ( money back guarantee). If you don’t think it has helped you, the company will not squabble with you.
Does the pharmacy or med company give you that guarantee?
Thank you, feel better, I would love to help!
Chuck
Cancer survivor
Still amazing my doctors.